How to use nasal sprays

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Hi. I'm Dr. Alan Greene and I would like to give you a tip for how to use nasal sprays that contain medications. This is especially useful for the steroid nasal sprays that are used to treat allergies, but also true for the ones used for a cold or other things as well. Now, the middle part of the nose between the two nostrils is called the septum and it's got cartilage in there and a lot of blood vessels where nosebleeds typically come from. And when the medication squirts straight into the septum that can cause side effects - irritation, bleeding, and other things like that. Now most of the time when people use a nasal spray what they will do is either use the same hand for both sides or use one hand for the nostril closest to you and one for the other. I'm going to suggest you do just the opposite of that. You take one hand and squirt into the other nostril. When you do that, you naturally point the stream away from the septum and avoid the side effects. It's a simple trick that works really well.

Revision

Last reviewed 9/18/2011 by David C. Dugdale, III, MD, Professor of Medicine, Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.

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